Lost in The Island

If you've watched The Matrix, Gattaca, Minority Report, and any one of Michael Bay's films, you can safely skip The Island because there's nothing new here.

The movie is about the cloning of humans as source of replacement parts for their "sponsors." DNA samples are taken from wealthy sponsors, and a matching clone is bred inside pods not unlike those found in The Matrix. Once they've grown enough, they are laid out on beds and given their first education. Instead of jacking in and having training modules uploaded into their brains, they're simply brainwashed with memories of the childhood they never had and shown promotional videos of The Island. This is how every resident in the facility believes that the whole planet has been poisoned by pollution, and that The Island is the only pathogen-free zone left.

The whole place looks industrial and utilitarian in design. The sets are probably taken from Gattaca. Everyone dresses in white tracksuits and wears white Puma trainers. (I want one!) White for the clones, black for the supervisors. Every aspect of their lives is watched and monitored, just like in Gattaca. Everyone is supposed to be content eating their oatmeal and tofu meals, waiting for the day when his/her name is drawn from the lottery and shipped off to The Island. But Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) wanted more. He started having dreams; he started asking questions; he saw a flying bug that should not be there at all. And he started getting chummy with Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson). Because of these, he was brought in for a consultation with Dr. Merrick. The same engineers who designed the retina-scanning spiders in Minority Report must've created these mini-bugs that crawl into your eye sockets, scan your brains, and comes out of you like kidney stones.

To make a long story short, Lincoln Six Echo eventually founds out the awful truth about "going to The Island." When Jordan became the next winner, he busts out of the underground compound with Jordan in tow. A whole string of inconsistensies ensue:

• After years of brainwashing about the outside world being a dangerous place, Lincoln and Jordan have no qualms about wandering about in the desert.
• With no real-life experience whatsoever, there were able to survive the real world pretty well.
• Lincoln has never imagined or seen any motor vehicle before, but he was able to drive a supercar and a flying motorbike.
• Clones are immortal. The whole police force can't bring them in. An elite team of ex-GIGN and Navy Seals can't bring them down. They fall off a skyscraper trapped inside a glass-and-steel corporate logo, and they simply walk off unharmed.

Did I mention the product placements?

• Lincoln wondering where his other Puma shoe went
• Lincoln and Jordan duking it out on Xbox virtual reality
• Aquafina for the clones, Budweiser and Michelob Light for everyone else
  
• Nokia 8800 for mobiles calls, Cisco IP phones for video calls
• Speedo for the swimmers
  
• Calvin Klein for Jordan Two Delta
  
• Cadillac Cien for the boys
• Ben & Jerry's for the kids
• Hummers, Chevys, and Chryslers for Michael Bay to smash up
  
• MSN Search if you're lost

Talking about lost, I rushed back home just in time to catch the last 30 minutes of the last episode of Lost's first season. Somehow, Charlie and the gang were able to retrieve turnip-head - not sure what happened to the French woman. The guys on the makeshift raft saw some bleeping on the radar and uses the flare gun. They attract a pirate ship, and Walt gets kidnapped. Jack, Kate, and John blows up the mysterious hatch. We see a long narrow tunnel leading down all the way to Season Two (coming next year).